and $450k of NEA funding goes to…

45 Sacramento County Artists

Earlier this year The City of Sacramento’s Office of Arts & Culture(OAC) launched “Seeding Creativity,” a $450,000 grant program funded by the National Endowment for the Arts targeting individual artists in Sacramento County. 45 artists will receive a grant of $10,000 to sustain their practice and further their creative work including a one-year mentorship with a learning and sharing cohort led by Kate Farrall. Emerging and mid-career artists with a 3-year work history in visual, craft, media, design, performing, and/or literary arts were encouraged to apply. Grants were awarded under the following four pathways: Research, Social Impact, Performance/Presentation, and Creation.

409 artists applied in June 2022, and I’ve been selected one of the forty-five awardees.

During the grant cycle, I will expand the level of critical discourse in our region, working with three Sacramento-based art writers discussing fifty Sacramento-based artists & exhibitions. I will host five virtual and in-person artist talks featuring regional artists and cohort members allowing for further context into their work. Lastly, I will host three in-person critiques. A group of selected curators, gallerists, educators, writers, scholars, historians, and collectors will engage with each artist and their practice.

I have included a few of my peers from the cohort that I am particularly interested in based on their project description shared by the OAC here.

Exploring issues of sustainability and the environment

• Kimberly Garza is passionate about bringing humanistic design solutions to cities that are historically, culturally, and ecologically responsive. Her project, “Capitol Canopy: Tracing Inequities in Sacramento’s Urban Landscape will show inequities in Sacramento’s tree canopy within disadvantaged communities and how disadvantaged communities can prepare for climate change.

• Jodi Connelly is influenced by how human migration and industrial activities have altered our ecosystems. She will research the materials and methods of rammed earth, an ancient, eco-friendly building technique that utilizes soil compaction to create structures that have the appearance of sedimentary rock.

Indigenous Cultures, Folk Art, and art of the Non-Western World

• Sunny Eselekhomen teaches “drum language” and arts of the Yorba and Edo culture. Students will learn about the tradition of "call and response" singing, be introduced to traditional West African music and instruments, and learn the tradition of Nigerian Batik.

• Miguel Mayagoytia explores how the traditional folk music (son jarocho) had engrained itself in our immigrant community in ways that advocate for human rights and social justice. He will create a series of bilingual, introductory son jarocho workshops in partnership with the Sacramento Public Library

Activism and Uplifting Marginalized Voices

• Mone’t Ha-Sidi has used lived experiences as a Black Femme & voice as a platform to speak out against oppression in various forms. Mone’t will bring a Black Burlesque festival to Sacramento, showcasing the different genres in Burlesque, from Classic, Neo, Nerdelesque, & Political.

• Karlos Ayala is a filmmaker and photographer who focuses on people who live on the fringes of society. Karlos will produce, film, and edit a new documentary about gun culture in America.

• Chris Lango is inspired by the archival. Chris will create a 15-minute video examining the life and career of Virna Canson, described by the Black press and NAACP as the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement in the West."

• Black Zebra‘s influences and inspiration are the everyday struggles of being a Black and Bangladeshi woman in America. This project will be to create a documentary on the homeless crisis in Sacramento.

Immigration and the Immigrant Experience

• Jennifer Lugris’s work highlights underrepresented stories of immigrants and their culturally blended families. This project is the creation of a book of Sacramento-based immigrant success stories and a series of paintings illustrating these stories.

• Natachi Mez, a daughter of Nigerian immigrants, creates work around themes of migration, indigeneity, displacement, and the troubled concept of what it means to be home. Natachi’s performance, “Fire: Breathing in the Wild,” combines spoken word poetry, rap, live instrumentation, call and response, and breathing exercises.

Uplifting Communities

• Kelin Lor is a music video director and filmmaker who tells stories of marginalized communities. Kelin will write and direct a short film about Del Paso Heights, the neighborhood in which he grew up.

• Lisa Daniels became interested in oral history after learning her grandmother was a “Riveter” on the USS Franklin Roosevelt. This project is an intergenerational oral history project in which youth will work with elders to celebrate Sacramento’s neighborhoods.

• Coon The Poet’s work is centered on resilience, empowerment, and healing after trauma. He will be adapting his Pain to Power school curriculum to community-based workshops in six locations across Sacramento.

Amplifying Youth Voice

• Jermaine Tilson is a Black artist who grew up in the foster care system which has greatly shaped his work. He will teach art classes, targeting foster youth in the low-income areas of the Sacramento area.

Find all awardees here and stay engaged in our upcoming projects.

The grant period begins 11/1/22 through October 31, 2023